


Round and round and round

by dioscureantwins



Series: After the Fall [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:47:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dioscureantwins/pseuds/dioscureantwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>so this is what it must be like living in hell</p>
            </blockquote>





	Round and round and round

“Come on John, we’re losing him.”

It’s another exhilarating chase by night across the rooftops of London. They have burst through the trap door, onto the roof, and he has actually managed to stay close behind Sherlock this time. So it is something of a shock to find their suspect already two rooftops away. The man runs at an astonishing speed, around the chimney’s and air vents, down a ladder to the next roof. 

Sherlock accelerates effortlessly – it’s easy when you’re legs reach all the way to the moon – but he has to rely on condition and endurance. And he’s losing him, no matter how hard he tries to keep up. Not the suspect, another stupid murderous git he all of a sudden finds he couldn’t care less about, but Sherlock. Who is running ahead, faster and faster, the soles of his shoes hardly making contact with the roof sheeting at all. He is starting to fly, the wide coat billowing around his form, aiding in the upward movement. He’s fastly disappearing from John’s vision, the black curls and black coat have already become one with the night. 

“Sherlock,” he cries, desperate, “Sherlock!” 

He tries to skip to the next roof, loses his footing, misses the roof. He sways his body forward in the fall his jump has turned into, in order to grapple the edge of the building but to no avail. He’s falling, falling, falling. Going down, down, down with increasing speed. The night has lighted up all of a sudden so he has a good clear view of the road down below. That has started to come up, moving towards him like a lover in anticipation of the impact once his body hits it.

***

THUD

***

He jolts up with a gasp, panting. For a moment he’s disoriented, then awareness starts seeping in. He’s alive. He groans. Just the nightmare again, the same awful bloody nightmare he has to live through every same awful bloody night. After having lived through each same awful bloody nightmare his every same awful bloody living day has turned into.

He throws back the duvet, shivers in the cold morning air. His whole body is covered with a thin film of sweat. The sheets are soaked through with it as well. As they are every morning. He just drags them off the bed now each day and throws them in the washing machine. Nice clean sheets every evening. To drench them with the tears of his body during the night again.

***  
Why?

***

The first week after it happened is just one big blur to him. Actually, that’s been the best week he’s had since Sherlock jumped from the roof in front of his eyes. He simply doesn’t remember anything that happened to him during that week. There hadn’t even been much pain yet. The shock had been that recent, it had all been dull. He must have made it through the inquest, the service, must have thrown his hand of earth into the pit, must have said his goodbyes. No matter how hard he tries, he simply can’t recall it.

***

Oh Sherlock, why?

***

They had found Moriarty’s body on the rooftop. The time of death approximately the same as Sherlock’s. The testimony of the pathologist had proven Moriarty had killed himself. So that left open the possibility that Moriarty had shot himself before Sherlock jumped from the roof. But, with Moriarty dead, why jump? 

The alternative is no less baffling. Why jump when the alternative would have been Moriarty pulling the trigger? It would have been a less disreputable death. And certainly more Sherlockian.

What went on in his head before he decided to take the plunge?

***

Please tell me, although I know you can’t do that anymore, why?

***

There is something wrong definitely. Well, of course there is something wrong. Ever since the trial it has all been horribly wrong. But Sherlock must have known John would not only disbelieve his fabrication about how he had researched John before they met. 

He had always proclaimed: “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, _however improbable_ , must be the truth.” 

So John has gone looking for the truth. He has applied Sherlock’s methods. Because John has found the idea of Sherlock having planted Mike Stamford in the park he had accidentally strolled through that day highly improbable. And now he knows it was impossible. Because Mike Stamford’s mouth fell open the day John asked him whether Sherlock had hired him to go and seek out John and act as a kind of intermediary between them. So Sherlock could confront him with the gist of his recent life story in the five minutes they’d spent in Molly’s lab. 

“You,” he had said, “you believe it’s true what they say in the papers? And you living with him all that time?” And he had turned away in disgust. 

Well, that was living proof, wasn’t it? Unless Sherlock had paid Mike Stamford to keep up appearances even after his demise. But that would be really, really highly improbable. And Mike Stamford isn’t an actor that good. So John simply refuses to believe that.

***

Christ. Why?

***

He has been so angry with Mycroft. He isn’t now. Not anymore. Four days after the funeral the anger started bubbling up inside him. He fought it for a day, not knowing what to do with it. After some pondering he took a taxi to the Diogenes, strolled in and slapped Mycroft in the face. Hard. 

Mycroft didn’t flinch. He looked at John, head cocked, angry red mark across his cheek, right eyebrow raised slightly. Then he nodded once, rose and went ahead to the desecrated room inside the hallows of the Diogenes where one was allowed to conduct a conversation. There he seated himself, turned his other cheek to John and said, voice tightly controlled and even: “please feel free to slap me to your heart’s content, Doctor Watson. Though I must warn you my relief at being punished for my misdemeanors will probably exceed your relief in doling it out.”

John actually stood and thought for five minutes. But it was a bad day. Every day was a bad day now. So he grabbed Mycroft by the bespoke labels of his bespoke suit and started dealing the slaps, once, twice, thrice … he lost count. Mycroft never said a word.

After what felt like hours John had to let go. He fell back in a chair, his legs suddenly all rubbery, unable to support him any longer. He started crying. That was the first time, he had really, really cried after it happened. Big gasping heaves of it. 

Mycroft sat quietly. He adjusted his shirt, the tie, the suit, he pulled his hand over his face, then he just sat. Waiting. Finally John recovered a bit. Then Mycroft stood, rang the bell and asked the servant for two glasses of water. He seated himself again.

“Feeling better again, Doctor Watson?”

“I will never feel better again,” he growled.

Mycroft nodded. “You’re a doctor and an intelligent human being. You know as well as I do that statement is false. But I’ll admit my feelings mirror yours right now.”

“God, you’re a cold fish aren’t you?”

“Wasn’t that one of the traits you admired so much in my brother?”

“He wasn’t cold.”

At this, Mycroft kept his silence.

But it is gone now. The anger. Mycroft visits him once a week. During these visits he sits in John’s chair and John sits in Sherlock’s chair and they don’t say much. But it helps, a bit. 

Mycroft marched him through the whole disastrous Ella episode. He was right again of course. She hadn’t had a clue about him when he returned from Afghanistan and she hadn’t been helping him now. Her suggestion he move out of Baker Street had been stupid. He felt it straight away. But of course he was too proud to return. Until Mycroft turned up with this diary Sherlock had apparently been keeping. Upon reading in Sherlock’s beloved scrawl that his dying wish was for John to remain at Baker Street he called Anthea immediately and asked for Mycroft’s help in resettling there. 

One week later Mycroft came up with a will. Apparently John was Sherlock’s sole heir. He now found himself sitting on a small fortune Sherlock had for reasons all of his own never wanted to make use of. He would much rather be sitting opposite an annoying, arrogant, self-proclaimed genius without a penny to his name. The will had been drawn up shortly before the blind banker episode. John remembers the hurt look on Sherlock’s face when he had corrected him in front of that posh git, Sebastian. Colleague, not friend. He understands the look so well now.  
And he will never be able to wipe it from his memory.

***

I was your friend Sherlock, so why?

***

The smell of Sherlock is slowly dissipating from the flat. John has kept everything exactly the way it was. Sherlock’s laptop still adorns the table in the living room, the kitchen table is still rendered useless by the abundance of chemistry equipment. It is safe to open the fridge however. And the toaster isn’t blown up every other week. But the loss of the smell is the worst confirmation Sherlock doesn’t reside at 221b anymore. 

Every now and then John shuts himself in in Sherlock’s cupboard. That’s where the scent of Sherlock remains the strongest. There he sits and fingers the black-on-black shirt a bit. He really liked the look of Sherlock in that shirt. Then he does some more crying.  
Not that the crying helps. It doesn’t help at all.

He misses the coat. He would so have liked to have the coat now. He could cover himself with it when he’s lying on the sofa. But Sherlock wore the coat when he jumped. It was torn probably and thrown away. Oh, to be able to stroke the coat just once more …

***

Please don’t go away. Why?

***

One day he answers the knock on the door and finds Sally Donovan standing in front of it. A bunch of flowers in her hand. He closes the door.

***

You’ve always said she was too stupid to see. So why?

***

Lestrade tells him he isn’t angry with him for shutting the door in Donovan’s face. Lestrade is quite angry with her himself for sowing the seeds of doubt in his mind. And he’s angry with himself for allowing them to germinate there. Because Lestrade spends almost every evening reinvestigating every case he worked on together with Sherlock and he hasn’t found any evidence of any one of them being a hatched job. So he is slowly but doggedly showing that Sherlock wasn’t a fraud at all. Well, John could have told him that straight away. He did tell him that straight away.  
So you didn’t have to jump, Sherlock. For Christ sakes, why did you jump?

***

You knew he would always stay by your side. Why?

***

Molly’s behaviour puzzles him. She hasn’t sought contact. She flees the lab when John enters. She doesn’t return his calls. He has perhaps exchanged three words with her since Sherlock died. He doesn’t understand. He had hoped they could have found some sort of consolation in each other, seeing as they have each loved Sherlock in their own way. He is willing to accept any reason she offers him for avoiding him but she could have the decency to explain herself, couldn’t she? It’s so unlike her. Did Sherlock say something really hurtful to her shortly before he died and is she afraid of blurting that out in front of John? Well, let her blurt. As if anything is ever going to hurt him again. 

***

What have you done to her, Sherlock. Why?

***

Some days he sits with his army revolver in his hand. He could just do it, couldn’t he? End this endless cycle of grief. Find rest. He doesn’t believe he’s going to roam the Elysian Fields hand in hand with Sherlock. But to simply stop being, to stop existing is surely better than having to live this bloody awful life.

After a while he sighs and puts the revolver away again. He can already imagine the screaming headlines. FRAUD DETECTIVE’s FLATMATE COMMITS SUICIDE. He’s not going to help them sell more newspapers by feeding fresh tinder onto the fire.  
Over his not-dead body he is. So he guesses he will just have to go on living. Though he hates it. Hates every minute of it.

***

Oh Sherlock, I can’t keep living like this. Why?

***

If he could only see his friend’s face one more time. Even a snarl of disdain would be welcome.

***

And why is that, you so-called genius. Why?

***

One day he’s certain he spots him on The Strand. The same height, the same quick arrogant stride. The same upright stance. He’ll admit the hair colour is all wrong, a kind of ginger, but he’s one hundred percent certain. He shouts his name and hurries after him but Sherlock is quicker of course. What with those legs that reach for the moon. So he’s left standing on the pavement, sobbing.

***

Why, oh God, why?


End file.
